Woven Thoughts

Monday, November 11, 2013

Days of Singing

There is an old Beatles song, Your Mother Should Know, in which one of the lines is "lift up your hearts and sing me a song".

That refrain has been going around and around in my head this week, as I prepare and ship submissions for several publications. I've been working in the studio and in the house, to the sound of music. I've been spinning and knitting, ironing and labeling, packing and wrapping. Taping shut. And singing.

It is hard not to be happy and joyful with songs to sing. Sometimes (while solitary here in my studio), I even dance. I especially like waltzes. My father was a dancer. He would waltz with us around the living room, first, with our feet on his, and then later as we could take real steps, he tried to teach us to "follow". I was never very good at "follow". Not many would be surprised!

I enjoy the tasks of ironing and labeling, wrapping and packing. It is "making things neat", it is "tidying", it is "organizing". I first realized I liked ironing my cloth when I made some linen napkins....an 8 shaft twill no less, more than 25 years ago:

We use them. A lot. Simple napkins, all white, which need to be washed often and then...ironed! Horrors! But it turns out I love ironing them, watching them smooth into flat sheets, watching the woven pattern emerge once again as each one is pressed and aligned...

Don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of ironing in general. Shirts? Bleah. Skirts, dresses, curvy things that I did not weave? Chores. Just chores.

But pressing cloth I have made, scarves and shawls, napkins and dishtowels...I get to re-visit them, enjoy them once again, take pleasure in the colors and patterns of the cloth.

Singing, dancing, ironing....Life is full of little pleasures. We take them as they come!